Thank you all our Closed Beta Testers to make Hello Kitty Online popular among game sites and within the blogsphere.  In order to serve all of you better, we are planning to have a major system upgrade and migration on May 11, 2008 00:00am-00:03am Hong Kong Time.  Please note that you may experience gameplay delay or even may not able to run the game during this maintenance windows. 

Thank you all for your support and if you have any questions, please feel free to email us at onlinegame@hellokitty.com.

Great news for all our Closed Beta testers! Due to public demand, we are extending the Closed Beta period until the 25th of May 2008, that means you will have over two weeks more to complete your quests, talk to your in-game friends, work on your farms and build your houses!

Expect a larger number of players during the rest of the Closed Beta period, and also watch out for the upcoming major in-game event! We will keep you posted regarding that through the official HKO Event blog.

Thank you all for your comments, reports and suggestions. We hope to hear more from you, so if you have any more concerns, please feel free to email us at onlinegame@hellokitty.com.

Happy playing!

Hi folks! We’re smack in the first week of May, and we’ve got a brand-new contest for all you aspiring directors out there. Hello Kitty Online’s full public launch is fast approaching, and in light of this, we want YOU to show us just how much you’re looking forward to the game by coming up with your very own Hello Kitty Online trailer!

The Hello Kitty Online Trailer Contest will test the limits of your creativity. Create a trailer worthy of Hello Kitty Online using any material of your own choosing, along with media files we will be providing, and submit it to Dream Studio for judging.

How you go about in the creation of your entry is up to you; just make sure that the trailer shows just how great you think Hello Kitty Online is, and make sure that you follow all the rules of the contest.

1. You have to agree to the terms and conditions of the contest
2. Download the Hello Kitty Online Trailer Media Pack
3. Unpack it using a program like WinZip, WinRar, ZipGenius, etc.
4. Use Dream Studio or your own program (such as Windows Movie Maker) to put the various elements together
5. Add your own material - videos, photos, music, animations or text that you might want to use in your video
6. Your video/s MUST include the elements provided in the media pack
7. upload the video to SanrioTown’s Dream Studio, making sure that you include the tag “HKOContest” (without the quotes)

The grand prize winner will receive a Hello Kitty Tote Bag that can only be found in Japan, along with a limited edition Hello Kitty USB memory stick with 1GB memory.

The runners-up will also receive a limited edition Hello Kitty USB memory stick each. The first runner-up will get a Euro Hello Kitty pouch, while the second runner-up will win a Hello Kitty Eye Relaxing Patch.

A total of 15 contestants will also receive a Hello Kitty USB memory stick each as consolation prizes.

You can find the official SanrioTown announcement here, while the HKO trailer media pack can be downloaded from this link. The contest runs from May 1 to June 30, 2008, which is more than enough time for everybody to come up with something that’s sure to make us at SanrioTown proud. Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to visit the official forum thread.

We’d just like to remind everybody that all entries should contain no offensive material, nor should explicit / violent content be used. Each entry should contain all of the elements found in the HKO trailer media pack, and should contain the tag “HKOContest,” otherwise these will be disqualified.

All video entries are considered as property of SanrioTown.

Good luck to everybody who plans on joining!

Technorati Tags: Hello Kitty Online, Hello Kitty, SanrioTown, Dream Studio, HKOContest, Hello Kitty Online Trailer Contest, HKO, MMORPG

If you are experiencing any difficulties with the client’s auto updater, we have provided you with direct-download links on the official site. These files should fix the auto updater problems reported to us by some of our Closed Beta testers. Just follow this link to the official site’s download section.

Enjoy the game!

Dear Closed Beta Testers. Some testers have raised concerns regarding the type of Hello Kitty Online package they received. A small number of you have received special Closed Beta packages that looked different and contained more items than the standard package. We would like to clear up this issue and apologize for any misunderstanding.

Those who have received the special package are our first Closed Beta testers, who were selected before we launched the Dream Studio contest to participate in the Hello Kitty Online Closed Beta. It quickly became obvious that there was a lot of enthusiasm for HKO, and we decided to increase our quota of beta testers. That is why we held the Dream Studio video contest, to give more fans an option to participate.

Although we could have simply delivered HKO via download like other MMORPGs, we decided that we wanted you to own something special, and thus we created a package that includes a game case, game disk, user manual, and video tutorial. This standard package, which almost all testers received, may be viewed here. We feel that this is an attractive bundle for a game still in closed beta testing.

In addition to the standard package, 80 pre-selected testers were sent special collectible boxed versions of the game. These 80 testers are the original beta testers, selected ahead of time based on their relationships to Sanrio and other criteria.

Unfortunately we only had a limited quantity of HKO boxed editions, as they are quite costly and time consuming to assemble. If interest is sufficient, we will consider producing more boxed editions for those interested in purchasing them, and/or as competition prizes. Please let us know what you think!

Once again, we are very grateful to our beta testers and apologize for any misunderstanding.

Regards,
GM Abby

Welcome to Sanrio Land! Finally, our closed beta testers can now start playing Hello Kitty Online! Only hours into the start of the closed beta, we have testers chatting, farming, playing minigames, doing quests and just enjoying the game.

To our beta testers, if you need any help during the game,  you can PM or approach any of your GMs wearing yellow uniforms for males, and teal/light blue uniforms for females.

For those who have not received the packages, please see the announcement in the previous post. Additionally, please note that we will he having scheduled server maintenance daily from 13:00 - 14:00 Hong Kong Time (GMT +8).

See you in the game!

Hi everyone! Thank you for the positive feedback regarding the packages, and we hope you appreciate them as our gifts to you. Although for those who have emailed and posted regarding their concerns, please know that your messages do not go unnoticed!

As there are some factors in shipping that are beyond our control, we hope you could all bear with these unforeseen circumstances. Rest assured that we want all our Closed Beta testers to experience the game and get the guides in our packages, so please give it until Thursday (24 April 2008). If you have not yet received the packages by then, we will give you instructions on how to get the game via FTP access.

For those who are having installation problems, just let us know and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Warm regards,
GM Abby
HKO Community Manager

Good news for all our Closed Beta testers! We know you’re all excited to receive your packages, and so we’re pleased to announce that your packages have been sent, and you should be receiving them very soon.

We hope you enjoy these special gifts that we’ve prepared for you, and we hope to see you all in the Hello Kitty Online Closed Beta!

Hello everyone! We know that you’re all excited to receive the Closed Beta package, and we realized just how much as we were going through the forums. But as we are still rounding up all the delivery addresses of our Closed Beta Testers, we have not sent out the HKO game packages yet.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to check their SanrioTown e-mails, to make sure that they do not miss out on this chance. The deadline for your replies is on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Here’s a preview of what you will be receiving:

As a reminder to our general CB Testers, only emails from onlinegame{at}hellokitty.com are valid Hello Kitty Online messages, and you must not give out information if requested by any other sender claiming to be for HKO.

Finally, if you have not received a follow-up email, rest assured that we have received your reply.

We’ll keep you posted!

Regards,
CM Abby

We’d like to make special mention of Joystiq’s sister site WoW Insider, for featuring Hello Kitty Online in their site for April Fools. They’ve converted it to Hello Kitty Insider for a day, and it came as a shock to many people, and that’s the stuff of great April Fools pranks!

Speaking of April Fools, hope you enjoyed our last post about the Island Adventure Expansion Pack. Just kidding people!

Technorati tags: april fools, hello kitty online, joystiq, wow insider, hko, mmorpg